Simple's Boring
by Consulting Angel
Summary: (post wedding) John and Mary are married, but we all know Sherlock's always cared so much for John, so when Mary is in a coma after a car crash, Sherlock continues to look out for John. John apparently finds this a bit odd for his friend's character.


Sherlock received the news via an 11 PM phone call. He had been in the middle of an experiment involving toes and hydrochloric acid at the time, and he almost didn't answer his phone. But he did. "Sherlock Holmes?" the woman on the other end said. "We have John and Mary Watson at St. George's. There was a car crash. You were listed as the emergency contact."

The experiment was forgotten and a cab called, and Sherlock walked into reception at the hospital an hour later. He flashed an ID at the woman behind the desk and was given a room number, and he all but ran up the stairs – the lift would take too long.

He paused only a moment to rap at the half-open door. "John?"

The man in question was sitting up in the sole bed in the room. A white bandage was wound round his head, and his wrist was braced, not to mention the numerous superficial lacerations and bruises visible around the hospital gown. "Sherlock!" He smiled, even though it must have hurt with the growing bruise on his jaw.

Sherlock took his cue and stepped closer. "Came as soon as I heard," he half-muttered, looking around the room and then down at John's file at the foot of the bed. "What happened?" He dropped the clipboard back on the footboard of the hospital bed and looked up.

John sighed and rubbed his head. "Car crash. Obviously," he started with a slight smile. "Um, we were in a cab, I think it was some bloody Smart car or something ran a light, no idea how they walked away, but…" He trailed off and sighed again. Sherlock nodded in the momentary pause, but John bit his lip and continued. "Have you seen Mary?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Thought she'd be with you."

John's face fell a bit. "They haven't told me anything. I'm a bloody doctor, I mean, but they keep treating me like some stupid –" He cut himself off. "I don't even know if she's woken up yet – she was out when the ambulance showed up."

"You're just here for the night. Observation," Sherlock said. "I'm sure you can see her afterwards."

John nodded, but he wasn't any less worried. "Sherlock?"

"Hm?"

"Would you mind – checking on her?"

Sherlock hesitated. John was fine, they surely would have told him if there was anything to worry about with Mary, it was late, he had left a toe in a beaker of acid in the microwave…

"For me?"

Had that actually been said, or had he imagined it? Sherlock cursed the world, forced a small smile, and nodded. "Of course."

John sighed a breath of relief; if he couldn't see her himself, at least he could send London's best detective to do so.

Sherlock kept the smile, nodded, and then left to see what could be done about his friend's request.

* * *

><p>Mary was in a room a few floors away. In hindsight, Sherlock should have recognized the room number as one belonging to a certain ward, but he did not. So it was exactly what he did not expect to see in the room that he did indeed see: Mary Watson lying in a hospital bed, comatose.<p>

It took a moment for him to register the scene, and another moment before a few staff with a patient on a gurney had to push past him to the operating room. He took a second to check her stats and prognosis and notes on the computer database, and then purchased a coffee at the canteen before returning to John's room.

He wrapped both his hands around the Styrofoam cup as he stood next to John's bed. He tried to focus on the warmth seeping through the cup and the steam rising through the tiny hole in the plastic lid before breaking the news to John's expectant face.

"They think she will recover fully," he said, carefully leaving out the time frame for which they expected this to happen. "But – as of now…" John's face began to fall and something started to tear inside Sherlock. "She's comatose. I'm sorry, John."

It was shock. That was why John was only staring blankly at Sherlock's coffee and not crying – though Sherlock had no doubt that would come later. He was a doctor; even if Sherlock had told him every minute of every day for a year, he would know that there was no guarantee of a person waking from a coma, or of when they would do so.

"Oh," John managed, quietly, after a moment. "Oh."

* * *

><p>John was released from hospital the next morning with instructions not to go home alone. Staying and watching over Mary as he very clearly and vocally would have preferred to do was not an option; the hospital staff made sure of that. Clearly they had had similar experiences with patients and their loved ones before. So Sherlock walked John out to the main road and hailed a cab for the two of them. But when Sherlock started to give John's address, John stopped him. "D'you think – would you mind – Baker Street?" he asked.<p>

Sherlock took one look at John and nodded. He supposed he had been stupid to imagine John would want to go home right away, without his Mary who now lay unresponsive in a hospital bed.

So they went back to Baker Street. 221B.

John's bedroom was still there, of course, along with a few jumpers and things he had never cleared out after he had moved in with Ms. Morstan. John made tea for sheer habit and Sherlock changed the bedsheets upstairs. John retired early for the evening without touching his tea. Sherlock stayed up all night composing. He did that when he was thinking.

* * *

><p>Sherlock continued to fulfill his duties as a friend. He ordered takeaway, made tea, made a conscious effort to not blow up the flat, accompanied John to hospital, tugged him away from her bedside when it was getting to be a bit not good for him.<p>

They were there now. Mary's bedside. John had spent the last five nights at Baker Street, thrice in his room and twice staring blankly at the wall.

Although it was true that his limp had yet to return; there had been only a slight tremor in his hand the first night, which could be attributed to the drugs leaving his system after his night in hospital, and – but Sherlock would not be the one to point that out. He had learnt some sense of boundary through his time with John.

It was this boundary that caused him to wonder if he shouldn't look for coffee, deduce the other patients and staff (silently, obviously), practice his lock-picking – anything to give John a moment alone with his nonresponsive wife.

But, for whatever reason, he never did. He simply sat in a chair against the wall and maintained silence until it was determined – by Sherlock, by John, by the staff – that the visit was over, at which point he would take John by the elbow and gently guide him to a waiting cab. They would return to Baker Street. Mrs Hudson would bring the evening tea tray. Sherlock would turn on the telly, more for background noise and a possible distraction for John than anything (God knew Sherlock couldn't stand the thing himself, not anymore) and then order takeaway, which more often than not would go cold and be repurposed for the next day's lunch.

At this moment, Sherlock was watching John's hand tug at the bedsheet, pulling it taut, as though if someone made the bed up properly then there would no longer be a body in it and Mary would walk up behind him and kiss his cheek and say oh wasn't he being ever so silly and –

John dropped the sheet abruptly. He pivoted on one heel, and then walked away. It took Sherlock a moment to catch up with what had just happened enough that he could follow.

John proceeded down the hall, to the right, to the lift, to the ground floor, to the cab. Sherlock followed and sat beside him in silence, and then paid the cabbie for him when he appeared to have forgotten that small detail upon arrival at Baker Street.

When Sherlock rejoined John upstairs, the latter was already in the shower. So Sherlock put the kettle on, flipped through a few programmes on the telly before deciding none were worth the quite minimal effort it would take to block them out, and put his violin to his shoulder.

_John was taking an awful long time in the shower_, he thought as he pulled an A from the instrument. _Perhaps he should check on him. No, don't be ridiculous – there are boundaries; he had been plenty firm enough about them the last time you interrupted his shower (even if it had been for a case). But half an hour for a shower; you're not an idiot, you know what can be done by an emotionally unstable person in a half hour in a locked bathroom._

So after thirty-five minutes, Sherlock allowed his deft fingers to pick the lock (elementary on a bad day) and swing the door open (not without caution; there were, after all, still boundaries).

"John?" he tried. The man was still standing under the hot water, the bathroom thick with steam, but there was no response. "John," he tried again, louder, and more certainly.

After another minute, there it was. "I – sorry, just a minute, yeah." The silhouette Sherlock could make out through the steam and the shower curtain moved forwards, and then the stream of water was shut off.

_Boundaries_, Sherlock reminded himself, and he pulled the door closed behind him as he stepped back into the hallway.

John had been crying.

* * *

><p>It was later that night that the boundary was crossed. And it was not Sherlock who stepped over that indisputable line, but John.<p>

Sherlock was lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. John had finished his shower, almost finished his tea, and excused himself to bed. Sherlock had remained at the window with his violin to count the steps of John's ascension, and then followed suit.

But now – now something was… off. He couldn't place it – perhaps it was too quiet, perhaps it was John's presence in the fla- _no_, he told himself. _Boundaries._

At some point during Sherlock's preoccupation with his internal debate, John had managed to come downstairs and step into Sherlock's doorway.

"I -"

Sherlock looked up. It was dark, but he could make out a few details. _Crying,_ he deduced. Of course he had been crying, he was always crying now. Or maybe the times he was crying just stuck more in his head. It wasn't fair, he didn't deserve this, he didn't –

John stepped forward and sat down on the edge of the bed. Sherlock's eyes followed him. This was unprecedented – but then, so was much of the situation, from John's marriage to Mary's coma.

John lifted his legs and before Sherlock could so much as say 'John', the man was lying next to him. Sherlock started to move over a bit more, to give room, but John's hand grabbed the material of his grey t-shirt. The message was received; Sherlock stayed put.

_Why was he doing this what was he playing it didn't he _know_ this wasn't fair how could he just because she_ – the train of thoughts continued, steamrolling every other notion of Sherlock's mind. He gave himself credit for maintaining his placid expression and posture.

But then John – John _cuddled_ him, as much as he hated to use that word, but what other was there? John's arm was wrapped up to his shoulder and his head was now on Sherlock's chest.

_Fuck _was the first word to take up residence in his suddenly empty mind palace. Followed shortly by _idiot._ And then the feeling one gets when one has been dropped off an infinitely high cliff.

John was half asleep. Perhaps fully asleep. Sleepwalking. Sleepwalking to fulfill a basic need that most humans found more necessary than not: a need for human contact.

That was the only explanation.

So Sherlock waited for John's breathing to become consistent, and for the hand in his shirt to relax, and then he allowed himself to press a light kiss to the top of John's head.

Even if it was a lie.

* * *

><p>The elephant in the room, as Sherlock thought it deserved to be considered, was not mentioned. Perhaps John truly did not remember. Perhaps he had blocked it out, chosen to ignore it. Perhaps he was afraid of ruining what it was they currently had together.<p>

_Oh, of course_, Sherlock's very internal and very sarcastic monologue snorted. Sherlock considered the easiest way to rid himself of said monologue, but none were methods John would approve of. Or anyone else, for that matter.

So life continued on as normal. Sherlock played violin and examined microscope slides, John cried about Mary – though that was becoming less frequent, and he had started going back to the surgery recently – and Mrs Hudson took responsibility for making sure the both of them ate enough and consumed enough tea.

The next time anything happened, they were in Mary's room at St. George's. John had taken to sitting down now, head bowed – praying, Sherlock assumed. He had always been a romantic, wasn't a stretch to assume he believed in some sort of a god, even if he was not a churchgoer.

John was seated next to Sherlock now; he had long since stopped pulling his chair forward to the bed. Sherlock was holding a pamphlet about the dangers of smoking in one hand and his phone in the other, though he was paying attention to neither, instead watching John from the corner of his eye.

"Sherlock?" John finally asked, interrupting the pristine beeps of the monitors.

Sherlock startled at the voice. "Yes?" he said after the moment it took him to recover.

Silence fell again, and Sherlock wondered if he hadn't perhaps imagined it. Then: "Why are you here?"

"How do you mean?"

John sighed. "Look, it's – I – it is really nice of you to do all this for me. Letting me stay at your –" Sherlock almost cringed. "– flat, and coming here with me and all, but… you really don't have to. I think we both know you'd be happier at a crime scene or the lab than making sure I don't stay here all night."

_Idiot,_ Sherlock wanted to mutter. "Of course not."

"Sherlock," he said fondly, in that way where he is convinced he is right and why is Sherlock even trying to lie at this point.

"I don't mind," Sherlock confirmed, perhaps a bit too quickly, a bit too surely.

John only looked over at him for a moment, and then said, "All right, then." He turned his face back to the hospital bed and nodded once. Sherlock thought – hoped? – he would just leave it at that, but he did not. "Why?"

Sherlock almost dropped the pamphlet he was not reading. "I – sorry?"

"Don't be thick. You usually can't ever be bothered to even act like you give half a shit about anyone. Victims at crime scenes, Greg's problems with his wife, Molly's apparent infatuation with you…"

_Oh, sod it._ "They're not you." The words came out of his mouth before he could consider stopping them – though, it is unlikely he would have done so.

He could practically feel the change in air pressure as John heard this, interpreted it, and blinked. "What?"

"You heard me perfectly, and I dislike repeating myself. It is a waste of time and energy for all involved." He slipped his phone into his jacket and flipped the smoking pamphlet open.

John was looking at him again. _God, why does he have to _be_ like that? Why can't he just – react?_ "So… you're acting like you care… because it's _me_," John said slowly.

"Yes." _Lung cancer is among the top preventable causes of death among adults aged –_

"So you…"

Sherlock stood suddenly, dropping the pamphlet on the floor. "I believe that's our cue. Mrs Hudson will worry if we let the tea get cold."

"Hey, Sherlock, I'm not – "

But he was already calling the cab, and so John had no choice but to follow.

Sherlock stayed quiet on the ride back. John followed suit. To be perfectly honest, he was afraid he'd done something wrong. To be even more honest, he was afraid he might be asked to go back home. So when they reached the flat, he certainly did wait for Sherlock to make the first move.

Which just so happened to be for the detective to sit down at his microscope and begin to measure out an amount of sulfuric acid.

John sighed, watched him a moment, and sat down in his chair with the paper.

He had entirely forgotten the earlier conversation – if it could be called that – when he heard from behind him, "Yes."

He craned around in his chair to look. No, Sherlock was still staring intently into the microscope. "Sorry?" John asked after a moment.

"Yes," Sherlock repeated, still without looking up. "I act like I care about you because I do."

John sighed and then nodded. "Fine." He turned back to the sports section of the paper.

The paper fell to the floor a moment later. "Sorry?" John asked again, because he was fairly certain Sherlock had said something, and yet –

Sherlock sighed irritably. "Honestly, have your hearing checked the next time you go in to the office. For the greater good of London."

"No, what did you say?"

"I care about you because I love you."

John blinked. No, Sherlock was… still staring into the microscope as though nothing had happened.

"Don't try and pass it off as some 'oh look, he's finally learnt to show emotion' display, because it isn't," Sherlock said before John could even start to say the 'yes, of course, you're my best friend' that Sherlock was certain he was going to.

And he still had not looked up from the microscope side.

"I don't expect anything to change. You're happy with Mary, after all, and she is in a coma, not a grave. I was simply answering your question."

John found himself a step away from Sherlock and his microscope. And finally, Sherlock did look up.

"So that's why you didn't object when I came into your bed the other night," John said.

Sherlock glanced back down at his microscope. "I didn't think you remembered," he muttered, and swapped one slide out for another.

John only watched him examine the samples for several minutes. "Why didn't you say something sooner? Or – ever?"

Sherlock paused with his hand on the adjustment knob of the microscope. "I tried," he said quietly.

John tilted his head to the side. No, that didn't make sense. When had Sherlock ever come close to saying anything like –

The realization came like a punch to his gut. Images flashed through his mind all at once. Crime scenes. Takeaway and telly. The two of them giggling walking away from a crime scene. The two of them giggling in Buckingham Palace. Sherlock sitting watch by his bed all through the night after the doctor at the A&E had said he would be fine after the unfortunate fall into the Thames but that someone should keep an eye on him just to be safe.

Christ, it was no wonder people always thought they were a couple.

When John could open his eyes again, Sherlock had not moved.

"Sherlock…" John started.

"It's fine," Sherlock snapped. He flicked off the light under the microscope's lens and then repeated himself, slightly more calmly. "It's fine." He stood to walk away – probably to his room to sulk – but John caught his wrist.

"No," he says. "It's not." When Sherlock turned to give him a confused look, he leaned forward and placed a light kiss on Sherlock's lips. "I'm sorry I didn't notice."

Neither of them could say exactly how the rest of the evening went, but at the day's end, they were both lying on Sherlock's bed, John with his head on the man's chest and Sherlock with one arm wrapped around John's back.

"There's still Mary," John finally dared to say, dared to address the elephant in the room. "It won't be simple."

Sherlock scoffed. "Simple. Simple's boring."


End file.
